Have you no iron and steel here? (×××: There are many iron mines.) What iron is there east of the railway? (×××: None east of the railway; it's all west of the railway.) How many people are engaged in iron and steel production? (×××: 1.2 million.) Does that include iron smelting, steel smelting, charcoal burning, and transport? (××: It includes all of that.) What is the population of the district? (8.2 million.) That's more than one out of every eight people. What will you do when the weather turns cold? How much iron have you produced? Is it iron slag or molten iron? (×××: The annual target is ×× ten thousand tons, and we have already smelted ×× ten thousand tons of iron.) That can't be counted as iron, comrade. (×××: 10% is good iron that can be transferred upward. The rest we can use ourselves to make steel.) Can the steel be made using the method from Shangcheng where they both stir-fry and hammer? Would it work if they only stir-fried without hammering? (×××: Hammering is necessary.) How many people are needed for one furnace? (×××: Six or seven.) Half stir-frying and half hammering? (×××: Roughly so.) How much steel have you produced? (××: The annual target is ××, and we have already produced ××.) Then you could just do nothing and sleep soundly. What will you do when it rains or snows? Have you made plans? (×××: We are currently holding meetings to study this and plan to send a batch down from the mountains in November.) (×××: We'll adopt a method of using crack troops.) When will they go back up the mountains? Next year when spring begins. How many do you plan to send down? (××: 600,000.) Where will the remaining 600,000 stay? When it rains or snows, you must ensure they live well and work well. Are the people on the mountains all young adults? (×××: There are also a very few older ones.) Are there any women? (×××: Yes, women are doing important work.) Doing important work indeed. (××: There's a principle here: in agricultural production, women are not as skilled as men and can't match them. In iron and steel production, neither men nor women know how at first, so everyone learns together. (×××: Some women learn even faster than men.) Ah! So that's how it is. How many women are among the 1.2 million? (×××: 40%, four to five hundred thousand people.)

How much cotton has Qiliying harvested? (×××: The annual average is over 200 jin of ginned cotton per mu.) What about the plot I went to see?

(×××: It's even more.) How much wheat have you planted? What was the seeding rate last year? (×××: The wheat planting plan has been completed. Last year, about ten jin of seed per mu was sown; this year, it's all over thirty jin.) That's more than half again as much. (×××: There are also plots where several hundred jin or even a thousand jin of seed per mu were sown.) That's too much; the plants will crowd each other out and won't emerge. (×××: We plant in layers, like a staircase.) Ah, so the wheat stands on a staircase. (The Chairman laughs, and everyone laughs.) Is your land deeply plowed? (×××: Around one chi and two cun deep.) Are there any fields plowed only seven or eight cun deep?

(×××: Yes.) Five or six cun deep? (×××: Very few.) Pay attention to watering, top dressing, weeding, and field management. Keep an eye on these things.

How are the living conditions of the masses? How are the mess halls being run? (×××: Mess halls are organized by company; one hall serves several hundred people.) People should eat in shifts. (×××: Originally, some took food home to eat, but now everyone eats together in the halls.) Food taken home gets cold. How much grain is being consumed? (×××: They can eat their fill, no limits.) This is a major matter. Meals should include vegetables. Does everyone have vegetables to eat? (×××: Yes.) What kind of vegetables? (×××: Sweet potatoes, radishes.) (×××: The masses in Qiliying generally can have tofu. ×××: Also bean sprouts.) What vegetables will you eat in winter? (×××: Radishes.) How much salt does each person eat per month? Can they have one jin? (×××: About that. One comrade said: Now the market scale has changed to one jin being ten liang.) What about oil? Five qian per person per day? Next year, you must plan to grow oil-bearing crops. You have cotton, so you can use cottonseed oil — fifteen liang per person per month. (×××: That's possible.) It's not just about the grain; there must be vegetables, and the vegetables must have salt and oil. Can pork be eaten once a week? (×××: Yes.) What about eggs? (×××: The state purchases both pork and eggs; we can't eat too much.)

Have wages been generally distributed in the communes? What was used for payment? (×××: Renminbi.) Where did the Renminbi come from? (×××: From government purchases of materials. How many people's communes are unable to pay wages? (××: All can pay.) That's not reliable. In places that don't produce cash crops, where they only yield a little grain, where would the money for wages come from? (×××: Disaster-stricken areas face more difficulties. After people's communes were established, there are disaster areas and bumper harvest areas; they can help each other through adjustments.) Is an incentive wage system actually good? Every month you'd have to evaluate, argue, and bicker over who gets more or less. (×××: We use a subsidy system.) Since you use a subsidy system, how is it distributed? (×××: On average, seventy yuan per person per year for both adults and children.) What is the proportion of subsidies? (××: The supply portion is 70%, and the subsidy portion is 30%.)

Are there doctors on the iron and steel production sites? (×××: Yes.) This is better than fighting the Japanese, better than fighting Chiang Kai-shek. In war, people die. Here, one or two might also die.

Do you also have model mess halls? (×××: Yes.) Rank your mess halls, categorize them into first, second, and third class. Call on the second and third class halls to catch up with the first class. (Party Secretary of Anyang County: In Anyang, we unearthed a furnace that Zhao Kuangyin used for iron smelting.) What's your evidence for that? (We checked the county annals and listened to elderly people's accounts.) Anyang is associated with Cao Cao and Yuan Shikai (his tomb is there). I've never heard that Zhao Kuangyin smelted iron there. Zhao Kuangyin was a native of Luoyang; his parents were minor officials. He lived during the Five Dynasties period — Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, Zhou. What you mentioned might be an iron-smelting furnace from the Song Dynasty. (Everyone laughed.)

Management personnel are a major matter. One type looks after children, the other manages meals. In the past, no one was willing to do this kind of work or be a caretaker. If we don't manage this well, what then? The superiority lies in managing better than parents do. If it's managed the same, there's no superiority. If managed worse than parents, they'll still want to take the children back. Without superiority, it won't work. If a big-character poster comes out, what will you do? If the communal kitchen isn't better than the home kitchen, how can it work? Right now, everyone is full of enthusiasm. Later on, people will tally up the accounts carefully and might say it's no good. (×××: We can run them well.) Are you all confident? (Everyone says: We're confident. One county party secretary says: The mess halls now are run better than eating alone at home.) Have any mess halls collapsed? (×××: No, many women are very determined and have even smashed their small cooking pots.) That's quite a drastic revolution. Are the Homes of Happiness happy or not? (×××: They are happy.) There's this kind of situation: someone doesn't want to go himself, but his son and daughter-in-law insist that he must. I think that person is not happy. (×××: Our Homes of Happiness now only accept households enjoying the five guarantees.) Do they work or not? (×××: Yes, they work.) Do they work separately, or together with the masses? (×××: Some spin yarn separately.) How is their food? (×××: Children... eat from the middle-grade kitchen; young and middle-aged adults eat from the large kitchen.) That's good. Do guests need meal tickets for eating? (×××: No, we operate a supply system. An elderly person had a guest; his team prepared four dishes and there was also wine for him. He was extremely happy.) Food is a major issue; you've handled it very correctly.

How has the problem of sleep been solved? Sleeping must be treated as a task. Can each person sleep eight hours per day? Seven hours? Six hours should be possible at least. (×××: We can't get six hours.) You must use enforced orders; they definitely must sleep six hours. Even in tense periods, they must sleep six hours. If they sleep only five hours, they haven't fulfilled the task. When they are tired at the worksite, have them sleep for half an hour before getting up to work again. Sleep is a major task. (×××: Right now we're smelting iron and steel, doing autumn harvest and autumn planting. Once this intense phase passes, it will be better.) Devise a few rules, a sleep constitution, specifying sleep durations for children, young adults, and the elderly. Poor sleep will lead to losses in the future. (×××: In Qiliying, women picking cotton can harvest sixty jin in two hours in the morning. In four hours in the afternoon, they only harvest sixty jin. When tired, labor efficiency drops.) No matter how intense the situation, they must sleep six hours; not even half an hour less. Enforce this order. The common people welcome this kind of enforced order; it's mainly the cadres who need to heed it. Children must sleep eight to ten hours. Don't you have battalion and company commanders? (×××: Yes.) Have the battalion commanders and company commanders issue an order: lie down and sleep. Tell the peasants to take a siesta. Study this; it's a major matter. One, eating; two, sleeping; three, managing the children well.

In farming, use the method of deep plowing and intensive cultivation to achieve the goal of reaping more by tilling less. Aim for a yield of ten thousand jin per mu. First, achieve two thousand jin, then double it to four or five thousand jin, and double it again for ten thousand jin. Plow the land one chi and two cun deep, apply fertilizer in layers. This conserves water, fertilizer, and manpower. (×××: We will also plant satellite fields.) Develop large-scale satellite fields. (×××: The province has eighty million mu of wheat, with sixteen million mu as satellite fields.) That accounts for twenty percent. In two or three years, the communes should reduce the area of the cultivated land. Plow three or four chi deep, achieve a yield of ten thousand jin per mu. On one hand, deep plowing and intensive cultivation; on the other, mechanization. In the past, we used shallow plowing and extensive cultivation, which meant wide planting but meager harvests. Change this to deep plowing and intensive cultivation, so we can reduce the acreage while increasing the harvest. I've given you a topic; study it. Don't end up having nothing to eat all of a sudden. Perhaps this is a way out. Coupled with mechanization, it should keep people from being utterly exhausted. Very well, let's end our discussion here. Thank you, everyone.